The invention relates to an appliance for feeding glass tubes to glass-processing machines, from a glass-tube magazine which receives a bundle of glass tubes, which possesses an exit opening and to which a unit for separating the glass tubes is assigned.
An appliance of the abovementioned type is known, in which individual glass tubes from a glass-tube magazine can, as required, enter the region of a hopper which feeds the clamping jaws of a glass-processing machine, the tubes passing through a pivotable feeding and shut-off element (German Auslegeschrift No. 2,719,390). The known appliance is incapable of performing in an entirely satisfactory manner, insofar as, in this appliance, the glass tubes can be transferred into the feeding hopper virtually only when this hopper is stationary, that is to say when the glass-processing machine is operating in a stepwise manner.
The object underlying the invention is to provide an appliance of the type under consideration, which appliance can, with the aid of mechanical means, be fed with bundles of glass tubes, and which automatically transfers individual glass tubes, as required, from the bundle of glass tubes and into the clamping devices of a glass-processing machine which operates uninterruptedly, or into glass-tube magazines which are located in advance of these clamping devices.